The world according to me....

This is where all the plastic bags sent from up and down the east coast of the US end up: on the wetlab table at the NOAA Beaufort Laboratory. What's in the bags? Flippers collected from dead sea turtles found on beaches or in shallow waters. Why are they collected? For various studies, but one principal reason is the ongoing ageing project, based on skeletochronology. This past week, Wendy and I volunteered to help out with the semi-annual "flipper cleaning" session, with Lisa Goshe and Larisa Avens. Although the smell was almost too much at first, we seemed to get used to it and spent nearly the whole day extracting the humeri from the different flippers. As I went through different flippers that were collected in Virginia, Georgia, etc., I couldn't help wondering if there are people working in various places who collect samples in difficult conditions and question if anyone will really use them. At least in the case of flippers in bags, you can rest assured that the samples are valuable will be processed in this ongoing project.